Climate Capsule Week of February 23

Highlight of the Week

Momentum For Climate Action Picks Up Steam In The Nation’s Capital

Momentum for comprehensive climate legislation is mounting in Washington, DC. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he wants to introduce a bill to tackle global warming by the end of this summer.

In an interview, Sen. Reid told the AP that he expects the Senate to take up an energy bill in the next two weeks and hopefully to deal with global warming late this summer. Reid says he is convinced that many senators want to move on the climate change issue this year.

In a similar move toward global warming solutions, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change pollution. The decision reopens the possibility of regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants for the first time, The Washington Post reports.

The Teaming With Wildlife coalition will descend on Capitol Hill this week to urge legislators to pass a comprehensive climate bill. Teaming With Wildlife members from across the country will get a chance to speak with members of Congress about the importance of healthy natural resources, and the necessity of helping wildlife habitats and natural systems deal with the effects of climate change.  Researchers and land managers warn that global warming is already having serious threats, and local and regional action is essential to safeguard these resources.  Contact Derek Brockbank for more information at brockbankd@nwf.org or 202-797-6666.

Also this week, more than 100 advocates from the Great Lakes region will be in Washington, DC to speak to their elected officials about the importance of restoring the Great Lakes.

The Great Lakes are plagued by rising water temperatures, reduced ice cover in winter and lower lake level in summer, and the increased assault of invasive species on wetlands driven by global warming. The Great Lakes need investment from climate legislation to help buffer this unique and important natural system against the impacts of global warming. 

Advocates will be going to Capitol Hill this week to ask members of Congress to enact strong cap-and-invest legislation that directs a portion of the revenue climate funds to Great Lakes restoration.  For more information, contact Jeff Skelding, Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition director, 410-245-8021 or jskelding@nwf.org.

U.S. Intelligence: Global Warming Threatens Security

The new head of U.S. intelligence and top adviser to President Barack Obama has reiterated that global warming is a top threat to the national security of the United States.

Poor countries, often with weaker governance systems, will be hit hardest by extreme weather such as flooding or drought driven by global warming. These threats undermine leadership in this nations and putting at-risk citizens further in harm's way, warns Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair.

"The impacts [of climate change] will worsen existing problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions," Blair told senators last week.

These outcomes have been predicted before, specifically in the 2007 report National Security and the Threat of Global Climate Change, released by the Center for Naval Analyses.

Bird Movements Reveal Global Warming Impacts

North American birds are moving northward and inland in response to global warming, according to a new in-depth report by the National Audubon Society.

Analyses of citizen-gathered data from 40 years of Audubon's Christmas Bird Count (CBC) reveal that 58 percent North American winter species shifted significantly north since 1966, some by hundreds of miles.

Movement was detected among species of every type, including more than 70 percent of highly adaptable forest and feeder birds. Only 38 percent of grassland species mirrored this trend, demonstrating the constraints of their severely-depleted habitat and suggesting that they now face a double threat from the combined stresses of habitat loss and climate adaptation.

"Experts predict that global warming will mean dire consequences, even extinction, for many bird species, and this analysis suggests that the process leading down that path is already well underway," warned Audubon President John Flicker. "We're witnessing an uncontrolled experiment on the birds and the world we share with them."

Quote:

“Today's meeting was the first step in creating a close and lasting partnership with President Obama and his administration on climate change. I look forward to working hand-in-hand with our federal partners to realize the ambitious clean energy and climate change goals I know we share, and that I know will provide a boost to our nation's economy.”

—Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.), in a statement released after he co-chaired a meeting with 11 other governors and President Obama’s top energy and environment cabinet officials.

Economic Message of the Week

Study: Huge Electric Productivity Gap, Efficiency Alone Could Save States Money

Simply using energy more efficiently could narrow some state budget gaps, according to a new Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) report.

Efficiency alone could cut 30 percent of U.S. electric use and avoid the need for 60 percent of coal-fired power production. “Electric productivity” is measured as dollars of gross domestic product per kilowatt hours consumed. The report finds that the landscape could change a lot simply by changing the source of electricity, and how we mange existing infrastructures.

RMI's Energy and Resources Team details the opportunities for savings by state with a new, interactive web tool. This map ranks how effectively each state uses electricity in relation to its economy.

Healthy Forests Absorb 1/5 Of Global Warming Pollution

Tropical trees have grown bigger over the past half century and now absorb 20 percent of global warming pollution from the atmosphere, emphasizing the urgent need to preserve threatened forests, researchers said recently.

Using data collected from 250,000 trees in the world's tropical forests over the past 40 years, their study found that tropical forests across the world remove 4.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Tropical forests now make up about half of the world's "land carbon sink", the British researchers said in the journal Nature.

"To get an idea of the value of the sink, the removal of nearly 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a ton of carbon, should be valued at around [$19 billion dollars] per year," study co-author Lee White, Gabon's chief climate change scientist, said in a statement.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that human activity produces 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide worldwide each year.

Happening This Week

February 27-March 2: Power Shift is this weekend

Wednesday, February 25: Senate Environment Committee Hearing on Latest Global Warming Science, 10:00 a.m., 406 Dirksen Senate Office Building

House Ways & Means Hearing on Climate change Legislation, 10:00 a.m., 1102 Longworth House Office Building

House Natural Resources Committee Hearing on Offshore Drilling - Industrial Perspectives, 10:00 a.m., 1324 Longworth House Office Building

Briefing: A Changing Climate - The Latest in Science, Policy, and International Negotiations, 2:30 - 4:00 p.m., 2325 Rayburn House Office Building

Thursday, February 26: House Energy & Commerce Hearing on Renewable Energy & Climate Legislation, 9:30 a.m., 2322 Rayburn House Office Building

Senate Energy Committee Hearing on Reducing Energy Use in Buildings, 2:15 p.m., 366 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Friday, February 27: Briefing: Electric Transmission 102 - Policy Challenges to Grid Expansion, 10:00 - 11:30 a.m., 210 Cannon House Office Building

Sunday, March 1: GWU hosts Wendell Berry, environmental literature giant, along with writers Bill McKibben and Gus Speth, for a night of discussion, poetry and inspiration, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 for students, $15 for general admission. All proceeds benefit the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. George Washington University Lisner Auditorium, 730 21st Street, Washington, DC.